Weird Science makes friends with atheists to keep them happy

But it sticks everyone in uncomfortable chairs so they drive safely.

Christians have happy tweets, atheists think too much. Social networking services allow behavioral questions to be examined using a large subject population. This one is no different, involving 16,000 Twitter users. The group was split in two based on simple criteria: do you follow one of a list of famous Christian figures, or do you follow someone from a comparable list of atheists (no word on how many people followed both). The researchers then analyzed the content of the tweets. Christians ended up using terms that suggested an intuitive thinking style and a focus on community; they were also generally happier. In contrast, atheists tended to be more analytic and less focused on social connections. This latter bit is important, as having social connections tends to keep people happier, and the authors think religion can help provide those connections.

Maybe we just need to give investment bankers smaller chairs. When yelling at you to stop slouching, your parents may have emphasized how posture influences how others perceive us. What they probably neglected to mention is that posture also influences how we see ourselves. And the truly weird thing is that this works even if we don't make any conscious choices about our posture.

The researchers set up chairs that either kept their subjects a bit constrained or allowed them to spread out into an expansive posture. Those who ended up with an open posture were more likely to steal money, cheat on a test, or break the law when in a driving simulator. The authors ascribe this to the fact that this sort of posture is generally associated with people being in a position of power. To see if there were any real-world consequences, the authors then turned to the streets of New York City, finding that cars that allowed their drivers to adopt an expansive posture were more likely to be illegally parked.

Fishers being killed by pot farming. No, this is not a story of anglers getting wasted and falling into rivers. Instead, the fishers in question are medium-sized mammals that are relatives of the marten and members of the weasel family. And, as it turns out, pot farming is killing them. It's normal to have problems with wildlife deaths near agricultural regions where the animals come in contact with various pesticides. But in this case, the agriculture came to the animals, as illegal pot farms have sprung up in the national forests of the Sierra Nevada. Survival of female fishers was found to correlate with the number of illegal marijuana farms known to be near their home range, which suggests that the illegal farmers are adopting some of the practices of their more traditional peers.

Acid reflux tied to organ rejection. Acid reflux seems more like a long-term health risk than an immediate crisis, but it apparently can set off a crisis: rejection of transplanted lungs. Bear with me, it'll all make sense. Of all the organs we transplant, lungs suffer rejection the most frequently, and their recipients have the lowest survival among transplant patients. Rejection is the product of an immune response to the transplanted tissue, and that's where acid reflux comes in. Acid reflux irritates the tissue in the esophagus, which creates inflammation, a form of immune response. That may ultimately help draw immune cells to the area, where they begin attacking the lung. Fortunately, there are both surgical and drug treatments for acid reflux, so this finding is mostly identifying a problem that doctors should be aware of.

Now that we've eliminated them, we've found out they were safe. This isn't so much weird as it is ironic. As part of its attempt to heighten airport security, the US rolled out two types of scanners, one of which relied on X-rays. But the scanners were put into use without any detailed safety testing, which raised fears that the estimated exposures used to decide on their safety was overly optimistic. But over time, the TSA has gradually removed the X-ray based scanners until, as of a few months ago, they're no longer in use at our airports. So, now is obviously the perfect time for the American Association of Physicists in Medicine to weigh in on their safety. Turns out they were fine all along, and you probably got a higher dose of radiation while waiting in line for security than you did during the scan itself.

I note that the Twitter study received a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, a known religious group. This may or may not influence their results. However, I have been personally involved with a number of similar studies (none pertaining to religion specifically), and reading through their paper I see no overt sources of bias, at least in terms of methodology.

The only real question is whether defining "Christian" as "follows one of these five Christians on Twitter" and "atheist" as "follows one of these five atheists on Twitter" may introduce bias as followers of these individuals are not representative of their groups as a whole. Because the full paper is behind a paywall, I'll list the representative Christian and atheist Twitter personalities here:

This "study" is flawed, conceptually. Most atheists are not "preachers" of their lack of belief (atheism is frowned upon on certain lines of work, and often on a personal basis), nor identify themselves with personalities who preach atheism, because it is n't the norm to be "converted". Its likely you reach the conclusion to embrace atheism by yourself. Unlike most Christians, who while also aren't preachers, they do openly identify themselves with Christianity.

Most atheists I know are exactly that.. - they usually avidly see themselves as part of a club of non believers and are devoted to figures like Dawkins - disciples of them even.

I find it much more likely that you would have an atheist being a follower of these figures above.. like Shermer, Hitchens or Dawkins.. than it would be to see a Christian following the pope.

The group was split in two based on a simple criterium: do you follow one of a list of famous Christian figures, or do you follow someone from a comparable list of atheists (no word on how many people followed both).

Uh, not so sure that's going to give you anything vaguely like a representative sample of atheists. That might give you a representative sample of angsty atheists, but it isn't going to so much as scratch the surface of the atheistic population who simply are atheist, without feeling the need to constantly hear about it or speak about it.

IOW I think what the study is getting here is a sample of two varieties of atheist: the transitory "hey I just discovered this and IT IS DEFINING ME!" kind, who will likely settle down after a few years, and the angsty "JEBUS KILLED MY KITTEN AND I MUST TELL EVERYBODY HOW MUCH RELIGION SUCKS" kind (who also may or may not settle down after a few years). Both kinds are also what I'd consider, well... religious, not to put too fine a point on it.

I note that the Twitter study received a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, a known religious group. This may or may not influence their results. However, I have been personally involved with a number of similar studies (none pertaining to religion specifically), and reading through their paper I see no overt sources of bias, at least in terms of methodology.

The only real question is whether defining "Christian" as "follows one of these five Christians on Twitter" and "atheist" as "follows one of these five atheists on Twitter" may introduce bias as followers of these individuals are not representative of their groups as a whole. Because the full paper is behind a paywall, I'll list the representative Christian and atheist Twitter personalities here:

This "study" is flawed, conceptually. Most atheists are not "preachers" of their lack of belief (atheism is frowned upon on certain lines of work, and often on a personal basis), nor identify themselves with personalities who preach atheism, because it is n't the norm to be "converted". Its likely you reach the conclusion to embrace atheism by yourself. Unlike most Christians, who while also aren't preachers, they do openly identify themselves with Christianity.

Most atheists I know are exactly that.. - they usually avidly see themselves as part of a club of non believers and are devoted to figures like Dawkins - disciples of them even.

I find it much more likely that you would have an atheist being a follower of these figures above.. like Shermer, Hitchens or Dawkins.. than it would be to see a Christian following the pope.

I don't know about that. In my experience, there are atheists, and there are atheists, the difference being how forceful their opinions are. I don't know many of the latter because most atheists just don't care. As for the former sort of atheist- call it atheism, call it agnosticism, the important thing is that it isn't important (source: I'm this kind).

I suspect you'll find more atheists following that selection of twitter accounts.

"In contrast, atheists tended to be more analytic and less focused on social connections. This latter bit is important, as having social connections tends to keep people happier, and the authors think religion can help provide those connections."

Yes, those anti-social, anti-community atheists. You don't see any atheist churches or community centers scattered around, even in areas with lots of atheists. It must be their fault. The lack couldn't possibly have anything to do with being excluded from the effective government subsidy for religious institutions (i.e. tax exemption). Not having to pay property taxes has NOTHING to do with helping keep all those church doors open to provide "community" for believers.

/S

If a group of atheists wants to form a nonprofit organization, they can do so. For example, American Atheists is a 501(c)(3) organization. (http://www.atheists.org/donate/tax-information). Nothing stops them from buying land in your community, organizing weekly (or whatever) social events and having the whole enterprise exempted from taxes.

The reason they don't do it is that it's apparently not a priority for them.

In contrast, religion is mostly about the social interaction. Go to church, go to the socials, go to the prayer meetings, sing together. Go to the wedding, the funerals, etc. It attracts people who are looking for social interaction so it's not at all surprising to find a lot of people there who are oriented toward lots of socializing. In fact, I have always thought that a large percentage, perhaps a majority of church, synagogue, temple an mosque attendees, are there ONLY for the socializing and have not much interest in the religious beliefs or practices.

You are not being entirely accurate here. Just being a 501(c)(3) non-profit does not mean you are automatically exempt from property taxes, which would be huge for a church-sized building. That determination is up to the state and local authorities.

Here in California, for example, a non-profit can only get a property tax exemption if you get an additional certification that you qualify for what they call the Welfare Exemption. That is only granted to organizations whose primary function is either religious, hospital, scientific, or charitable.

An atheist organization isn't religious, or a hospital, and probably couldn't claim to be a purely scientific organization, as no research of any type is done. Charitable MIGHT fit, but remember, the people making the grey area determinations are usually religious (as most people are, especially older people), and unlikely to give the benefit of the doubt to damn atheists. All they have to say is "social meetings for the like-minded are your primary purpose, and that is not charity, even if you also do charity work". Boom, here come the property tax bills.

Oh, one other thing: apparently thirteen individuals followed someone from both the Christian and atheist lists, and these individuals were removed from the dataset. Since they had 7,557 Christians and 8,716 atheists in total, it's actually a bit odd that only 13 people were in both groups, but I guess not many people actually want to see what people from both groups are saying.

My guess is that they picked the Christians they did (there being so many choices possible) to get a largely disjoint set.

In contrast, atheists tended to be more analytic and less focused on social connections

gotta agree with this. I don't practice religion but I know several churchy people and the ones who dont preach hatred, fire and brimstone to the heathens are actually quite pleasant and no different than any other person. I notice that in their church going and gathering up for all the things they do - there is a lot of face-to-face networking / helping each other out and so forth. cant argue with the obvious benefits of any of those things. Yeah, some of them also have a habit of putting a positive spin on pretty much anything - to the point of annoyance (for a cynic) but hey whatever keeps em happy.

It's certainly true that atheists in general tend to be a bit Asbergerish and not very socially gifted, but that doesn't mean they don't WANT those social connections. I grew up in religious circles, and the community is tremendous, and was a huge factor in my life. My point is, I didn't CHOOSE to leave the community. I changed my MIND, and their community now excludes and reviles ME.

I would join or help create an atheist community center or "church" in a second, if the deck wasn't stacked against us. Anyone who has seen how church finances work knows most churches would go under in a second if they had to pay all taxes, especially property and income taxes. Here in Silicon Valley, property taxes are monstrous. And school rules are rigged in many places in the country such that a school MUST allow outside religious groups to meet on their property (outside of school hours) if any other group like the Cub Scouts (which as it so happens is also a religious organization, since atheists are not allowed to join) are allowed. But no such law requires them to let atheist groups meet, and you can just bet most of them wouldn't, in many area of this country. So once again... a critical de-facto subsidy that atheists are excluded from.

In contrast, religion is mostly about the social interaction. Go to church, go to the socials, go to the prayer meetings, sing together. Go to the wedding, the funerals, etc. It attracts people who are looking for social interaction so it's not at all surprising to find a lot of people there who are oriented toward lots of socializing. In fact, I have always thought that a large percentage, perhaps a majority of church, synagogue, temple an mosque attendees, are there ONLY for the socializing and have not much interest in the religious beliefs or practices.

I think it's mostly the opposite. Perhaps its just due to my personal history of moving around a lot when I was younger, but it seemed that the VAST majority of people who went to church maybe said hello to a few people the recognized, then immediately went home. There was always the couple of old ladies and a few families that stayed to help with things, but it always seemed like it was more just an established routine than any sort of a social gathering.

"In contrast, atheists tended to be more analytic and less focused on social connections. This latter bit is important, as having social connections tends to keep people happier, and the authors think religion can help provide those connections."

Yes, those anti-social, anti-community atheists. You don't see any atheist churches or community centers scattered around, even in areas with lots of atheists. It must be their fault. The lack couldn't possibly have anything to do with being excluded from the effective government subsidy for religious institutions (i.e. tax exemption). Not having to pay property taxes has NOTHING to do with helping keep all those church doors open to provide "community" for believers.

/S

I was pleased to be invited to speak at the meeting place of adherents of another religion (Humanist Atheism), at the Leicester Secular Hall a few years ago on the subject of community currencies. They have a splendid 19th century temple with wonderful architectural features in Leicester. Their ( http://www.leicestersecularsociety.org. ... hawtin.htm ) history states the organised form of the Atheist religion to be in significant decline: "Against this background it is not unfitting that Leicester is today the only city left in the country which can boast its own fine hall entirely devoted to secular propaganda. Such secular halls were once found in not inconsiderable numbers especially in Midland and northern cities. ". Their website now seems to describe them to be constituted as a limited company, though their educational aspirations would appear to give them equal rights to any church or temple of religious traditions different to theirs to apply for charitable status in the UK.

As to my own place of worship, this is part of a network of local churches from which the Coventry Foodbank has fed 17,000 hungry people in the last 18 months ( http://coventrycentral.foodbank.org.uk/news-events ). Given the failure of the secular state to provide the basic benefits for which we are taxed this represents, I don't see our charitable status as being seriously challenged by anyone.

It's certainly true that atheists in general tend to be a bit Asbergerish and not very socially gifted, but that doesn't mean they don't WANT those social connections. I grew up in religious circles, and the community is tremendous, and was a huge factor in my life. My point is, I didn't CHOOSE to leave the community. I changed my MIND, and their community now excludes and reviles ME.

I would join or help create an atheist community center or "church" in a second, if the deck wasn't stacked against us. Anyone who has seen how church finances work knows most churches would go under in a second if they had to pay all taxes, especially property and income taxes. Here in Silicon Valley, property taxes are monstrous. And school rules are rigged in many places in the country such that a school MUST allow outside religious groups to meet on their property (outside of school hours) if any other group like the Cub Scouts (which as it so happens is also a religious organization, since atheists are not allowed to join) are allowed. But no such law requires them to let atheist groups meet, and you can just bet most of them wouldn't, in many area of this country. So once again... a critical de-facto subsidy that atheists are excluded from.

I am, and know plenty of, atheists. And none of them are "Asbergerish".Maybe your community you miss so much is still have long lasting impressions on you and your perception of the world.I would suggest going out and meeting more people to help you understand where your impressions are wrong.Just because YOUR school was screwed up, or you hear bad stories from a few crazies in Utah or down south....doesn't mean it is like that everywhere.

Oy, the first example of "Weird Science" seems to be a hot button issue.

And I can see what should be part of the reason, already comment #4 reveals the outcome of the research is rigged to fit the group definitions. If it is a Templeton funded sociological research, I am not surprised. They are known to have amassed a stable of sociologists that cherry pick their results! (Jerry Coyne over on Why Evolution Is True use to write about Ekelund at al and their egregious 'research'.)

The abstract tell us happiness was defined by proxy as the respective core subjects of the groups, social relationships (as a proxy for expression of happiness) for the religious community twitter groups, analytic thinking (as a proxy for expression of non-happiness) for the atheist analysts twitter groups. And of course, many religions and christianistic among them are steeped in an habit of expressing happiness, whether they are happy or not.

I don't think one can get good correlations on happiness from group traits, so any hypothesis would be hard to test.

However, and FWIW, atheists are in general more intelligent than the average and religious less intelligent than average. And happiness as expressed by contentment within society is AFAIK correlated with intelligence (by education et cetera). So a prediction would certainly be that atheists as a group should tend to be happier.

However, and FWIW, atheists are in general more intelligent than the average and religious less intelligent than average. And happiness as expressed by contentment within society is AFAIK correlated with intelligence (by education et cetera). So a prediction would certainly be that atheists as a group should tend to be happier.

I always thought that being more intelligent made you less likely to be happy. Wasn't there a Simpsons episode about that?

It's certainly true that atheists in general tend to be a bit Asbergerish and not very socially gifted, but that doesn't mean they don't WANT those social connections. I grew up in religious circles,

No, that is certainly not a fact, I am unaware of any such results and you offer zip references.

You yourself can't diagnose people without being a trained doctor and meeting a patient. Conversely, I doubt very much the statistics on diagnoses among atheists are more than in the general population. I would guess less, since being an atheist correlates with intelligence, and intelligence correlates with health.

Let us not give the religionists their preferred language. No one has ever proposed a good showcase of a "militant" atheist, as opposed to, say, the first name on the religious twitter list, the then militant (and implicated criminal) evangelical ex-leader of a church Ratzinger that "condemned" people and behavior all over the place, and went up against medical authority ("condoms cause HIV"). I don't think even Hitchens, who people think of as combative, were anymore than responsive and critical.

If a group of atheists wants to form a nonprofit organization, they can do so. For example, American Atheists is a 501(c)(3) organization. (http://www.atheists.org/donate/tax-information). Nothing stops them from buying land in your community, organizing weekly (or whatever) social events and having the whole enterprise exempted from taxes.

The reason they don't do it is that it's apparently not a priority for them.

This is silly. Here in Sweden, where most are nonreligious, people are as socially involved and organized as everywhere else.

The difference is that churches don't do it for them, people do it themselves or with government help. Some tax-exempt organization forms are popular, like life long education (which can be fairly 'low' level: languages; communication skills like licencing for cars, boats, planes; et cetera - but also for work and workplace skills).

finding that cars that allowed their drivers to adopt an expansive posture were more likely to be illegally parked.

How did they adjust for socioeconomic factors in this extension of their work? I would assume that large luxury sedans were highly rated as "allowing an expansive posture." It could simply be a matter of 1. "I'm rich I can afford the ticket," or 2. "I'm a big wig the rules don't apply to me."

Outfit a fleet of cabs with two different seats, randomize drivers on any given day, track incidents back to the style of seat used.

Oh, and fishers are @$$HOLES and I have absolutely no sympathy for them. Growing pot and killing fishers at the same time? Seems like a win-win scenario to me.

Edit: To the downvoters, you've clearly never lost a pet or a coop full of chickens to a fisher cat. They're not like foxes, which will steal a single chicken and leave...they'll just kill all of the birds and leave their headless corpses. So yeah, I really can't feel any sympathy for them.

This latter bit is important, as having social connections tends to keep people happier, and the authors think religion can help provide those connections.

Yes, and so can a paintball group, a biking group, or any kind of group with a common interest, and they can do so with 100% less threats of eternal damnation or people telling you how to live your life.

In contrast, atheists tended to be more analytic and less focused on social connections

gotta agree with this. I don't practice religion but I know several churchy people and the ones who dont preach hatred, fire and brimstone to the heathens are actually quite pleasant and no different than any other person. I notice that in their church going and gathering up for all the things they do - there is a lot of face-to-face networking / helping each other out and so forth. cant argue with the obvious benefits of any of those things. Yeah, some of them also have a habit of putting a positive spin on pretty much anything - to the point of annoyance (for a cynic) but hey whatever keeps em happy.

It's certainly true that atheists in general tend to be a bit Asbergerish and not very socially gifted, but that doesn't mean they don't WANT those social connections. I grew up in religious circles, and the community is tremendous, and was a huge factor in my life. My point is, I didn't CHOOSE to leave the community. I changed my MIND, and their community now excludes and reviles ME.

I would join or help create an atheist community center or "church" in a second, if the deck wasn't stacked against us. Anyone who has seen how church finances work knows most churches would go under in a second if they had to pay all taxes, especially property and income taxes. Here in Silicon Valley, property taxes are monstrous. And school rules are rigged in many places in the country such that a school MUST allow outside religious groups to meet on their property (outside of school hours) if any other group like the Cub Scouts (which as it so happens is also a religious organization, since atheists are not allowed to join) are allowed. But no such law requires them to let atheist groups meet, and you can just bet most of them wouldn't, in many area of this country. So once again... a critical de-facto subsidy that atheists are excluded from.

Nothing prevents you from forming a tax-exempt atheist organization.

Are you ignoring my response to you that points out that this does NOT guarantee tax-exemption?????